


Cuvée

by AMyosotis



Series: Cooperage [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Character Study, M/M, but only the Will Graham that exists in Hannibal's mind, gratuitous wine metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 07:09:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14732270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMyosotis/pseuds/AMyosotis
Summary: Will stares resolutely at Hannibal’s chin as he speaks. Vitriol spills from his mouth like polluted water.





	Cuvée

Hannibal Lecter crosses his legs, and thinks.

With his eyes closed the office rises up around him, a bottle of dumb Bordeaux set on the side table and lamp light low. If he opened them there would be but a single difference. Will Graham would not be sitting in the low black chair opposite him, his hair haloed by the artificial light and face dark, hands fidgeting on the armrests. It is only here in Hannibal’s mind that he gestures and over-articulates his words without a sound; he is an amalgamation of body language and form, a foil to the still Riace bronzes that recite Meleager only a few turns down the corridors of his mind. Between sentences Will frowns in a way that’s less sadness and more bottling tension, pursing his lips with the corners pulled severely down.

Hannibal finds it charmingly coarse. His more polished patients speak slowly and with consideration, their backs straight and shoulders relaxed. The self-conscious ones like Franklin have a tendency to smile, or apologize, even through tears. Others fall back on avoidance or elaborate shows of shock, putting the onus of their less socially-acceptable thoughts on him; he brought them into the world, he dragged them out into calm, reasonable conversation. He’s the threat to pleasant society, not them.

They’re certainly not wrong. Will stares resolutely at Hannibal’s chin as he speaks. Vitriol spills from his mouth like polluted water. They try to release their darkest thoughts in small digestible pieces, always so self-conscious, needing to frame every word so that Hannibal will believe them harmless. And he mostly does.

But Will is a wild animal, Hannibal thinks fancifully. A man whose eyes must dart back and forth even in his sleep, body twisting and neck curving, heart beating fast in the moments he forces the rest of his body to still. A cornered animal. And cornered animals are past trying to blend into their surroundings, past picking their fights. 

Even so, he is overly conscious of what other people think of him. His image of Will closes his own eyes for a moment before continuing to speak with more space between each cut-glass word. He lied through omission when they first met. Will does not dislike eye contact because he sees too much of other people, but because he sees their skewed mental versions of him, always reflected back. The curse of empathy is one of seeing yourself everywhere yet forever distorted—a wild dog’s face shown rounding and bulbous and fierce in the too-wide eyes of a tamer, catch pole hid behind their back. Everyone wary of you, so that you learn to be wary of them.

This Will is done with talking now. He blinks rapidly and flares his nostrils, lips a flat line. They imply a slight pressure, a tensing of his cheeks, a bitterness built-in to the way he mouths around words. Hannibal imagines that this must sour his palate, that Will drinks wine high in tannins occasionally to be polite but any whiskey he buys for himself is sweet as sin. He thinks Will must have sipped whiskey and coughed at the burn one evening after a long week of boys at school jeering him and girls keeping a careful distance in the hallways. He thinks that wine on Will’s tongue must taste like an unripe plum.

He raises his right pointer finger slightly over its armrest, and considers. There are very few patients he has ever thought about tasting in that particular way, and those he usually sent on their way—referring them or redirecting their neuroses into more productive pursuits. Will is no longer here either. He sits in Chilton’s prison, nowhere to run, no distractions from his burning mind. It is Hannibal’s opinion that Will used to spend very much time on his own, but little time with himself; he spent it with his dogs, with books, with flies and fishing and walking out in the forest until the bottom of his chin turned numb and his ears burned. In a cell with nothing but his imagination, he must be overflowing with himself like a river dammed. Hannibal wonders if it will change Will’s palate.

He thinks it’s a shame that he never tasted Will before he settled, back when he was keen and acidic. In the dark glow of his office, eyes turned up behind his lids, Hannibal runs his tongue along the back of his gums. He uncrosses his legs. And in the private confines of his mind palace he pulls Will’s face to his own, drinking in the way Will breathes fast and short, eyes tracking across his face—wholly engaged in the moment, all barriers stripped by fear. He tilts his head, and takes Will’s lower lip, and savors. 

The wine sits untouched beside him.

**Author's Note:**

> Hannibal’s a pretentious dick but he savors things wholeheartedly and regrets very little, and that’s admirable, right?


End file.
